I Tried That Viral 'Vagina Highlighter,' and Honestly I Don't Hate It

If my pubic area and I had a relationship status on Facebook it'd say "It's complicated." I'm not proud of how long it took me to chill out about pubic hair, and some days I feel better about my grooming situation down there than others. Don't get me wrong, I'm still my pubic area's biggest fan. For the most part, I let it do its thing, and I'll tend to it when I feel the need.

As a result, I'm super familiar with razor bumps and the kind of painful ingrown hairs that have, more than once, forced me to pull high-waisted jeans out of my wardrobe for weeks at a time. Worst of all, I haven't found a solution aside from scheduling shaving around pool parties and seaside vacations, even though I follow all the "rules": New blades for every shave, gently exfoliating before and after, not shaving too frequently, and applying moisturizer—I do it all. But even with absolute diligence, at the two-days-post-shave mark, I have to deal with those angry, itchy bumps. Or at at least I did until I started using The Perfect V's Very V Luminizer—the latest beauty product to piss off all of Twitter. I've been using the controversial "vagina highlighter" now for about a week and guess what? I'm pretty into it.

I want to be perfectly clear: How you style—or don't style—your pubic hair is your call. No one, regardless of their gender, should do anything to their bodies that makes them uncomfortable. Beauty standards are B.S. I know that, you know that, and society at large is finally catching up with us.

But knowing that my pubes are my choice doesn't make me feel any less uncomfortable when I spot stubble at the edges of my bikini bottoms. The truth is that I don't even know what kind of pubic hairstyling I prefer. There's still a lack of mainstream alternatives to the smooth, hairless aesthetic brought to us by Baywatch and reaffirmed by the thousands of products tailored to our bushes (or lack thereof). And while I don't have the confidence that gives Amber Rose the power to rock a full forest on Instagram, I still rolled my eyes at V Highlighter when news of it first came across my feed. Before I tried it for myself, I was ready to retweet the sentiments like the ones below:

Rage felt like a valid response to the launch of a "vagina highlighter," especially since so many women—myself unabashedly included—still deal with toxic "down there" shame and go to dangerous lengths to pretty up a self-cleansing and self-maintaining organ. So when V Highlighter landed in the beauty closet, I immediately examined the instructions on the tube, furious that any product dare suggest my vagina needs perfecting. But there's no mention on the packaging about applying the cream, which is infused with Vitamin E and elderflower, to your genitals. It's official use is for what the brand has coined "the V" (the mons pubis, vulva, and bikini-line triangle).

V highlighter isn't suggesting that my vagina needed fixing but promises to soothe and smooth, the visible skin in sensitive areas that are commonly waxed, shaved, and stripped of hair. To be perfectly honest, my bikini line needs soothing in the summer, and I offered to take the product home and give highlighting my V a try. I put it to the test that very same night after a hot shower which, full disclosure, did involve some lady-scaping. While I didn't notice any sudden improvements in the quality of my skin after the first application, I did notice a different, more fruitful result after a few days.

Normally I'm razor-bumpy two or three days after shaving. Days four to six are basically a nightmare of moisturizer, maxi skirts, and reminding myself that reaching for tweezers will only make things much, much worse. But using V Highlighter minimized razor bumps, eradicated ingrown hairs, and reduced irritation almost entirely.

After a week I no longer feel compelled to angle my lower body away from the camera in totally natural pool photos.

We don't have too much summertime left, and my V won't be subjected to serious shaving for much longer. But until this year's beach days are gone for good, I'll continue to use it as a solution to what I thought was an unsolvable problem. It works so well that I had to wonder what might have happened if the brand had shifted its marketing focus from skin "perfecting" to straight-up skin care. I'm not looking to impress anyone with the luminosity of my vulva, but I appreciate a product that conditions and soothes my skin, which is exactly what this product does.

All bodies deserve to be comfortable and cared for. While V Highlighter didn't hit shelves with the goal of making shaving less stressful for sensitive skin, that's what it did for me. As a (mostly) self-assured 26-year-old woman, I'm not here to be told that I need a more youthful vagina, but regardless of the brand's intent, my V feels better when it's highlighted and I am here for anything that makes my body feel good. After all, it's summer and I plan to enjoy the rest of it as confidently as I can while wearing the smallest bikini I own.